...U.S. Forest Service is unleashing tiny wasps in a few Anchorage parks in attempts to control another pest, the birch leaf miner. The wasps lay their eggs inside leaf miner larvae and emerging wasp larvae destroy the leaf miners. North Pole...

...that are munching their way across Alaska's Interior. Call it the attack of the five-millimeter larvae. The birch leaf miner, birch leaf roller, aspen leaf miner and spruce budworm munched through Interior tree canopies from May through...

...into a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, skeletonized and scrawny. Hardwoods have not been spared. The amber-marked birch leaf miner, a European import, turns birch leaves brown. No tree deaths have been documented, but researchers suspect repeated...

...been slowed down as well, said Roger Burnside, the state entomologist. Mosquitoes, bark beetles, saw flies and birch leaf miners are flying less, he said. Less activity means smaller populations. "It has to be warm enough for them to want...